1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to computers, and more particularly to a method, system, and computer program product for lateral partitioning for a shingled tape format.
2. Description of the Related Art
Three prevalent tape storage technologies include a helical scan tape where data is stored along vertical or diagonal tracks on the tape, parallel tape where data is stored on longitudinal tracks in parallel during one scan on the tape, and serpentine tape where data is written in a forward and then reverse longitudinal direction in a serpentine pattern across bands or tracks on the magnetic tape medium. In serpentine tape drives, the bands extending the length of the tape may be divided longitudinally into segments, such as a housekeeping segment, calibration segment, user data segment, etc., where data is written in a serpentine manner within the bands of a longitudinal segment. A serpentine tape drive first read/writes a set of tracks in a forward direction within a segment of a band, referred to as a wrap, then read/writes the next set of tracks in a reverse direction, and so on, leading to a serpentine pattern for the data layout. In serpentine tape technology, a wrap comprises a set of tracks written for some length of one of the bands that extend the entire length of the tape and a wrap section comprises a wrap for the length of one segment.